Author's Note: Sorry for the delay folks! I have been seriously considering restarting volume two of this story over from scratch, despite having the entire thing plotted already. I'm trying to decide how close to canon I'll be sticking, particularly after season 10. As always, I promise this story will not be abandoned. I've got a few more chapters in editing right now; I'm just agonizing over details. I'll try to build a buffer back up and post more regularly.

Disclaimer: Red vs. Blue belongs to Rooster Teeth, not me. I make no profit from this, and no copyright infringement is intended.

Chapter 18

Kaikaina pulled the fur collar of her coat a little higher as she watched fat snowflakes fall in the street. This was the sixth backwater planet they'd visited in the past four months trying to locate Freelancer, and Kai's sunny disposition was suffering in the cloudy December weather of an already primarily frozen planet.

The corners of her mouth turned up with the hint of a smile when she rounded the corner and found the street market she'd been looking for. Visiting such markets had become a favorite past time while Sven and Rick hunted down leads. It was routine by now. She flew them down to the planet, they followed the lead, she found a market or a poker game or went to get supplies, or on one occasion to get a new tattoo, and they returned to the Staff of Charon – empty handed more often than not.

The sun broke through the clouds long enough to shoot a beam of light through strings of delicate glass beads hanging from a vendor's stall, illuminating them like rainbow colored icicles, and Kai ducked beneath them into the stall and the warmth of a portable heater.

It was some sort of metal worker's stall, full of an odd mix of jewelry, weapons, and scrap from old electronics and ships. She eyed a set of decorative throwing knives and wondered if she could give them to Girlie as a Hanukkah gift. She lifted one and tested the balance. She had been training more than ever lately, and was getting fairly good. The knife felt decent in her hand, but definitely not up to a quality Girlie would accept. She put the knife down again.

"What are you looking for, little one?" Sister glanced up at the fat old woman who sat bundled in the corner of the stall.

"Nothing really, just gifts for friends," Kai replied absently. "... Things to make them smile. We haven't done a lot of that lately."

Not since Rick's grand plan to take down Freelancer to avenge Connie had gotten nowhere. Sister got the feeling Rick was in trouble with his boss for it too. Rick wanted to wipe Freelancer off the map for good, but his boss still wanted something from them. That was a problem however, since about a month after they lost Connie, Freelancer seemed to just disappear; it dropped off the map like it never existed in the first place.

That was what they were doing now – searching for their elusive nemesis. It was a boring job that mostly required monitoring radio transmissions and sifting through data reports to look for any clue of their whereabouts. Hence why Sister had primarily just been training. She didn't have the patience for such things. Tomoko did still keep tabs on Grif for her though, and as the team's official mission pilot Sister had been able to get off the ship fairly often. Kandyse would even let her help out on the bridge of the huge battleship now and then, though mostly she just slapped Sister's hands away before she touched anything she shouldn't.

The flash drive Connie had given her was still tucked safely away in her pocket at all times, except the handful of times when she plugged it in and tried to decipher it. Tomoko had made a lot of progress on the information that Connie had actually given Rick, enough that a mission to acquire whatever it was they had been after was in the preparation stages. They were still after something else though, hence the continued search for Freelancer's newest hiding place. As far as Connie's secret information though, Sister figured it was something pertaining to Charon, not Freelancer, but she couldn't get at the impossibly encrypted information. Sister's knowledge of coding was basic at best even with Tomoko's tutoring, hence there was no way she could decode it herself and no way she could share it with the people it could possibly be used against. It was a conundrum.

Sister left the street market with a backpack full of treasures and headed back towards her appointed meeting place with Sven. After a few minutes of standing alone, that familiar feeling of restlessness that came on ever since Connie's death overtook her. She rubbed anxiously at the new tattoo on her hip - a sprig of mountain laurel, Connecticut's state flower - like it was a worry stone. "Hyper-vigilance" Tomoko called the feeling, but Sister didn't care what the name was. What she did care about was trusting her instincts.

She started walking in the direction Sven had gone earlier and looked for any sign of him. She listened to the gossip in the doorways of shops and watched for any police activity, as her team had taught her. Any detail could be helpful. She memorized landmarks as she went so she could find her way back. She looked for any buildings that looked official and for any that looked too normal or abandoned - good places for secret hideouts.

Luck was on her side – though whether the luck was good or bad was debatable. It had been about half an hour when she rounded a corner and immediately dodged back into shadow as she saw an armored figure at the other end of the street activate a camouflage enhancement. She watched, barely breathing, knowing that one movement could trigger the enhanced armor's motion sensors. She had played many a game of hide and seek with Tomoko and Cody over the past few months as they tested Connie's armor so that it could be replicated and improved.

The Freelancer's armor enhancement certainly made them invisible, but Sister quickly noticed their tracks in the light snow, and if she listened closely she could hear the soldier walk with the tiniest hint of a limp. Considering the capabilities of that armor, the injury must be pretty bad. Possibly even a broken leg.

As the footprints turned away from her, Sister spotted Sven and Rick further down the street in the shadow of an alley. It looked like they were holding a man against his will, questioning him. She realized the Freelancer would be within range to do them some serious damage before the men ever saw them. She spotted an open jeep about 20 feet ahead of her on the street and darted forward, leaping into the seat and ducking down.

She heard the footsteps stop, and imagined the Freelancer had heard her or registered something on their motion trackers and turned to see. Hopefully they would just think someone had passed by on the cross street. The footsteps resumed. Sister set to work hot-wiring the jeep as quickly as she could. Luckily, she had learned the basics of such things when she was about twelve, watching Grif work on cars. She heard the shouts and gunshots start at the same time she got the vehicle started and squirmed up into the driver's seat at quickly as she could. She could see Rick and Sven's prisoner sprinting away as the two men ducked for cover, looking around in confusion for their attacker.

"Footprints! In the snow!" Sister shouted as loudly as she could, then revved the engine and headed toward them, aiming for the spot she was fairly sure the invisible soldier stood. She saw Sven and Rick realize what she was talking about and fire back at some of the footprints. There was a flurry stirred up as the soldier dodged, and Sister slammed on the brakes in front of her team.

"Get in!" The men leapt into the vehicle and Sister slammed her foot down on the gas as the gunshots resumed. She rounded the block and heard another vehicle behind them. The Freelancer was in pursuit.

"Where did you come from?" Rick asked as Sister spun the wheel and they careened around a corner.

"I had a bad feeling, so I came to find you," Sister explained.

"You didn't know where we were though," Rick said, confused.

"Always with the tone of surprise." Sister rolled her eyes and sighed. "I do remember the training Sven and Girlie give me. But okay, fine, it was mostly luck – the right place at the right time to see the Freelancer." She pulled onto a busier street and maneuvered expertly through the traffic. The Freelancer had already fallen behind, but hadn't stopped pursuit yet.

"The camouflage enhancement – that was the one that got Connie," Rick snarled, staring behind them at their pursuer.

"No, that one had black armor. I'm not likely to forget that encounter any time soon. This one was green," Sister said with a frown. "I don't remember a green one from Connie's stories."

Sister made a left turn, then another at the next block, then waited at the corner, pulling forward just far enough to see down the block. Other cars honked angrily behind her for blocking traffic. When she saw the Freelancer's vehicle go past she turned left to complete the square and sped down the street, crossing just as their pursuer turned to follow the first left Sister had taken.

"But hey, I guess we've found Freelancer now. Mission accomplished. Or at least one of them," Sister quipped. She kept driving for several blocks until she was sure there was no sign of the Freelancer behind them, then she turned let Rick give her directions back to the ship.

"We found nothing but a clean up crew," Sven sighed. "They were betrayed from inside a few months ago. The Mother of Invention crashed a few hours from here. At least four Freelancers have gone rogue, multiple are dead and hospitalized, and all projects have been moved to undisclosed locations while the remaining agents search for the ones who went rogue. If we had been fast enough we could have hit the mother load of tech, but they are nothing if not talented at keeping their presence secret. We're basically starting from square one."

"Oh. Well, damn," Sister said, dejected.

"Yeah," Sven sighed in agreement.

"Control will reassign us after this," Rick snapped angrily. "We won't be allowed to continue this path after another dead end. We'll most likely continue the project we would have been on if Connie was still with us."

Sister noted how Rick never actually said the word "died" when referring to Connie. She wasn't sure if he still had hope that the woman could be revived or if it was just too painful to say.

"Well, what is Freelancer doing if most of their agents are rogue or out of commission?" Sister asked. "I thought the whole point of them was their super soldiers."

"Not by a long shot," Rick said darkly. "The Director has much bigger aims than super soldiers. He's a brilliant neuro-scientist, and a pioneer in the field of Artificial Intelligence. They say ONI wanted him for the Spartan program, but he agreed to research for them only if they gave him autonomy from ONI and let him focus on AI and other "creative" solutions to the war besides just super soldiers."

Sister pondered this as they abandoned the stolen jeep a few blocks from the docks and sprinted the short distance to the ship. As she fired up the engines Rick's voice came from behind her.

"Sister."

"Yeah, I know. Don't interfere in your missions, too young, not trained, blah, blah," the girl muttered.

" … Good work today. Thanks," Rick said gruffly. Sister twisted in her seat, staring at Rick in surprise. Sven came in then, stepping around Rick and taking the co-pilot's seat and handing Rick a data pad.

"Message from Nate. It's about the new armor he's designing." Rick took the device with a nod and headed deeper into the ship. "Cody said he wants to work on some new tuneups when we get back. We're going to be doing some recruiting soon, and the ship will need to be ready for some longer hauls." He pulled up a list on screen to show Sister. She noted some planets she and Brennan had visited before.

"We'll need to make sure they aren't still looking for the albatross on these two." She pointed. "Can I ask you something?"

"Always," Sven nodded.

"If the Mother of Invention crashed on this planet, why aren't we going to the crash site to investigate?" Sister inquired as she punched in the launch sequence and gently took them off the ground.

"Because the UNSC sent official investigators. We could impersonate them, but that usually gets messy. We do not unless we have to. It will be easier to steal their reports."

"Can I ask you something else?"

Sven just raised his eyebrows in exasperation and waited.

"Right, so, everyone basically stopped pretending that you guys were the Insurrection around me months ago, but if Freelancer is UNSC then you're working against the UNSC. Because it's corrupt, obviously. But when I looked up Charon Industries what I read said that they're one of the biggest suppliers of weapons and technology to the UNSC. So..." Sister trailed off and waited. Sven sighed.

"Sometimes I forget how young you are, you adapt to most things so easily. Welcome to the world, Kaikaina. Money, power, technology, politics – nothing is separate from one another. If Charon doesn't have an exclusive contract with the UNSC – " Sven shrugged. "Or maybe someone in the UNSC wanted Freelancer investigated and brought down, but couldn't do it through official channels. It is not our job to know. We are mercenaries. We get payed to complete a task. Good and Bad sides are relative to most of these people."

"But not to you, right?" Sister asked softly. "And not to Connie. So why do you do it?"

"You can have all the dreams and idealism or personal family vendettas in the world to fight for, but that doesn't put food in your belly, Kaikaina. You have to make your own way in the world. No one will ever do it for you. Connie and I always tried to take missions that we thought were the right thing to do, but there is nothing romantic about this job. Sometimes you take any job that will pay, because you have to eat. This is what I know how to do, and I'm good at it."

"But hypothetically, what would happen if you did something else. If you just … stopped?"

"... I don't know." Sven said quietly.

"But this job has killed or nearly killed everyone in your family. You have to want something else for yourself at some point, right? Some kind of peace? Because you can't tell me that this makes you happy," Sister protested. Sven gave her a small smile.

"There it is again – that beautiful naivety. It is endlessly refreshing to see things through your eyes. I would preserve that forever. We never had that when we were young. Most people out here do not get the luxury of being happy."

"I guess it's too bad there aren't more people like you." Sister said after a quiet moment.

"What do you mean?" Sven looked at her in confusion.

"People who recognize that it's something worth fighting for," she stated.

Author's Note: And one more of my original characters has been introduced! Woohoo! We probably won't see the Freelancer in Green again for awhile, but they will be important later.